These recommendations were informed by participant responses to a question asking them to describe one factor that had helped them manage their teaching-related workload.
Offer more TA support and ensure TAs receive adequate training and support
“More support for training/managing TAs. Recognition that 200+ student courses with labs and 6 TAs to manage are not the same investment as a ~20-40 person seminar course.”
“Access to TA’s with higher skill levels, previous experience in Canadian university teaching, and professionalism.”
Identify course scheduling issues and explore ways to address them
“Course scheduling at UBC-O is a major problem, where departments have no control over our teaching schedules. I teach at incredibly inopportune times and have no mechanisms for changing my schedule even though it is impacting my well-being as an employee. It is that much more difficult to manage a heavy workload, including teaching-related tasks, if one is consistently tired because of the terrible teaching timeslots that have randomly been assigned by a computer.”
“Being assigned courses that meet on corresponding days to reduce the hours coming and going to campus.”
Reassess teaching load distribution to reduce high teaching loads
“Not having to teach seven courses a year.”
“A lower per term course requirement.”
Reassess expectations regarding service workload
“Reduced service overload, obviously.”
“It is not necessarily the teaching related workload – it is the other workloads that put time pressure on the teaching part.”
“Decreased service requirements/expectations during busy teaching times.”
Provide more support around Workday, academic concessions, misconduct cases, course coordination, and administration
“Someone to triage admin-related work. Actually, it would be great if we were the teachers and not the [admin].”
“Less administrative duties.”
The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) offers a variety of programs and services that support members of the UBC teaching community at all stages of their careers.
For assistance with any of these recommendations please contact the Centre for Teaching and Learning.
